No Wind of Blame

The Mysterious Affair at Styles

Agatha Christie · 190 pages

Set in the summer of 1917 in an Essex country estate, the story follows the war-wounded Captain Arthur Hastings to the Styles St. Mary manor of his friend John Cavendish. The Cavendish household is wrought with tension due to the marriage of John's widowed old aunt Emily, she of a sizeable fortune, to a suspicious younger man, Alfred Inglethorp, twenty years her junior. Emily's two stepsons, John

Tied Up in Tinsel

Ngaio Marsh · 259 pages

A Christmas pageant turns unholy. Holed up at Hilary Bill-Tasman's manor estate for Christmas, Troy Alleyn is to paint the man's portrait and, while she's there, view the Druid Christmas pageant. Along with a pack of eccentric guests, Troy enjoys the festivities-- until one of the pageant's players mysteriously disappears into the snowy night. Did the hired help-- each a paroled murderer from t

The Silkworm

J.K. Rowling · 464 pages

When novelist Owen Quine goes missing, his wife calls in private detective Cormoran Strike. At first, Mrs. Quine just thinks her husband has gone off by himself for a few days--as he has done before--and she wants Strike to find him and bring him home. But as Strike investigates, it becomes clear that there is more to Quine's disappearance than his wife realizes. The novelist has just completed a

The Sweetness at the Bottom of the Pie

Alan Bradley · 375 pages

In his wickedly brilliant first novel, Debut Dagger Award winner Alan Bradley introduces one of the most singular and engaging heroines in recent fiction: eleven-year-old Flavia de Luce, an aspiring chemist with a passion for poison. It is the summer of 1950--and a series of inexplicable events has struck Buckshaw, the decaying English mansion that Flavia's family calls home. A dead bird is found

The Crime at Black Dudley

Margery Allingham · 211 pages

Death Comes to Pemberley

P.D. James · 330 pages

Death Comes to Pemberly is a murder mystery based on the characters from Jane Austen’s Pride and Prejudice. The novel joins Mr and Mrs Darcy after they have been married for six year and just as they are preparing to hold their annual ball in honour of Mr Darcy’s mother. Everything is going well, Jane and Bingley have arrived and their staff have preparations well in hand. Then the night befor

Death of a Cozy Writer

G.M. Malliet · 297 pages

Crocodile on the Sandbank

Elizabeth Peters · 280 pages

Thirty-one-year-old Victorian gentlewoman Amelia Peabody has not only inherited her father's fortune, but she is also blessed with his strong will as well. Now she's headed for Cairo, accompanied by a girl with a tarnished past, to indulge her passion for Egyptology. Little did she know that murder and a homicidal mummy lay in wait for her.

Busman's Honeymoon

Dorothy L. Sayers · 397 pages

Lord Peter Wimsey and Harriet Vane marry and go to spend their honeymoon at Talboys, an old farmhouse in Hertfordshire which he has bought her as a present. The honeymoon is intended as a break from their usual routine of solving crimes (him) and writing about them (her), but it turns into a murder investigation when the seller of the house is found dead at the bottom of the cellar steps with seve

The Moonstone

Wilkie Collins · 444 pages

One of the first English detective novels, this mystery involves the disappearance of a valuable diamond, originally stolen from a Hindu idol, given to a young woman on her eighteenth birthday, and then stolen again. A classic of 19th-century literature.

Satellite People

Hans Olav Lahlum · 336 pages

The Big Sleep

Raymond Chandler · 220 pages

Philip Marlowe, a private eye who operates in Los Angeles's seamy underside during the 1930s, takes on his first case, which involves a paralyzed California millionaire, two psychotic daughters, blackmail, and murder

The Siamese Twin Mystery

Ellery Queen · 325 pages

Ellery Queen and his father are driving through a mountainous area of the United States on vacation when they are forced by a forest fire to seek shelter in a private home on the top of a mountain. The home soon becomes impossible to escape due to the fire. Dr. Xavier's aerie is host to an unusual assortment of characters, including his family and guests, a pair of teenage boys who are "Siamese" o

A Speedy Death

Gladys Mitchell · 305 pages

If anything rouses the rancour of guests at Chayning Court, it is that someone should dare be late for dinner. But as it turns out, the object of their disdain and speculation on this occasion, the intrepid explorer Everard Mountjoy, would never apologise for his tardiness. In fact, he would never eat dinner again, for he was slumped dead in the bath... The alarming Beatrice Adela Lestrange Bra

The Burglar in the Library

Lawrence Block · 344 pages

Bookseller and New-Yorker-to-the-bone, Bernie Rhodenbarr rarely ventures out of Manhattan, but he's excited about the romantic getaway he has planned for himself and current lady love Lettice at the Cuttleford House, a remote upstate b&b. Unfortunately, Lettice has a prior engagement—she's getting married . . . and not to Bernie—so he decides to take best buddy Carolyn instead. A restful respite f

A Rule Against Murder

Louise Penny · 360 pages

*Starred Review* Readers who haven’t discovered Louise Penny and her Armand Gamache series yet are in for a treat. In the latest entry, Chief Inspector Gamache of the Sûreté du Québec has traveled to the luxurious and remote Manoir Bellechasse with his wife, Reine-Marie. Each year they return to the manor to celebrate their wedding anniversary on July 1, Canada Day. This year they are fellow guest

The Clock Strikes Twelve

Patricia Wentworth · 259 pages

**Miss Silver investigates the murder of a great British industrialist.** Though they share a manor house, the Paradines are not close, and their patriarch does nothing to discourage the petty jealousies that divide wealthy families. A cold figure, James Paradine prefers work to his relations, but on New Year’s Eve he convenes the household. Valuable plans have been stolen from his office, and

Hamlet, Revenge!

Michael Innes · 285 pages

Murder at Scamnum Court, the grandest of England's stately homes, a treasure-house guarded only by the marble deities that line its terraces. And murder during a performance of *Hamlet*, played on an Elizabethan stage erected in the Banqueting Hall, and with a cast that includes the Duke of Horton as Claudius, his duchess as Gertrude, and the greatest of English actors, Melville Clay, as Hamlet. A

Sweet Poison

David Roberts · 288 pages

It is 1935 and the Duke of Mersham is hosting a party at his country house, when one of the guests is poisoned. Was it an accident or something more sinister? The Duke's younger brother, Lord Edward Corinth, and journalist Verity Browne set out to investigate.

Jerusalem Inn

Martha Grimes · 299 pages

Superintendent Richard Tury of Scotland Yard spends his Christmas holiday at a colorful country inn near a vast estate inhabited by the titled, the rich, the famous, and--suddenly--the deceased.

Where There's a Will

Rex Stout · 272 pages

An English Murder

Cyril Hare · 176 pages

A country house murder mystery classic, as a party find themselves snowed-in on Christmas Eve with a murderer among them... The snow is thick, the phone line is down, and no one is getting in or out of Warbeck Hall. All is set for a lovely Christmas, with friends and family gathered round the fire, except as the bells chime midnight, a murder is committed. But who is responsible? The scorned yo

The Thin Man

Dashiell Hammett · 197 pages

Nick and Nora Charles are Hammett's most enchanting creations, a rich, glamorous couple who solve homicides in between wisecracks and martinis. At once knowing and unabashedly romantic, The Thin Man is a murder mystery that doubles as a sophisticated comedy of manners.

A Meditation on Murder

Robert Thorogood · 362 pages

Aslan Kennedy has an idyllic life: Leader of a Spiritual Retreat for wealthy holidaymakers on one of the Caribbean's most unspoilt islands, Saint Marie. Until he's murdered, that is. The case seems open and shut: when Aslan was killed he was inside a locked room with only five other people, one of whom has already confessed to the murder. Detective Inspector Richard Poole is hot, bothered, and fed